


Ticket to Ride

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-08 22:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4322619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim Drake thought his covert mission to Washington D.C. would be easy. He thought wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day Tripper

If Tim had been paying attention, he might have noticed sooner… but he was having a good day. The sun was shining, he’d had plenty of sleep, and Bruce had no idea that Tim was lying to him— which was hard to pull off under the best of circumstances. As he made his way down the airplane aisle, Tim hummed to himself, certain that everything would go according to plan. It was working out so far.  
Famous last words, as it turned out. He was traveling business class today (one of his Bruce-proofing procedures), so his seat was at the back. He arrived at his row to find the aisle seat already taken by a figure concealed under a large newspaper. Tim tapped on the arm rest.  
“Hey, could I get by? I’ve got the seat by the wind— oh my _god you’ve got to be kidding me_.”  
The boy in the chair lowered his newspaper. “Drake?”  
“What are _you_ doing here?”  
“Get off my plane!” Damian yanked out his headphones and threw his newspaper into the window seat. He looked just as surprised as Tim felt— his cheeks were turning pink. “I’m _trying_ to run an undercover mission here.”  
“Well you’re not the only one,” Tim told him, and he grabbed the flight attendant from the aisle. “Hi, is there another seat I can take? I don’t do kids.”  
“Come and say that to my face!”  
“I’ll pay for the upgrade if I have to. I just really, really need another seat.”  
The flight attendant looked the two of them over. “Do you guys know each other?”  
“No.”  
“Absolutely not.”  
“Ah.” She smiled sympathetically at Tim. “I’m sorry, sir, but there isn’t another seat available. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”  
“Unbelievable.” Tim turned back to Damian as the flight attendant walked away. “Move over and let me through.”  
“Fine.”  
“Now what are you doing here?”  
“I’m working a case.”  
“Does Bruce know?”  
“No.” Damian stared down at his hands. “He thinks I’m going to Beijing for a couple of days.”  
“But you’re going to D.C. instead.”  
“Obviously. Are you going to tell him?”  
“That depends— are you going to tell me what’s going on?”  
Damian glared at him. Why did this kind of thing happen? Tim was supposed to be on an (admittedly covert but) very simple case— and now he was going to have to sit next to Damian for a couple of hours and talk through his feelings. He had a pretty good idea about the emotional can of worms behind this particular incident.  
“There’s going to be an assassination attempt,” said Damian, “on a U.S. senator. I’m going to stop it.”  
“And you didn’t tell Bruce because…?”  
“Because it’s the League of Assassins, okay? If I told him, he would fly off to handle it by himself. The League is _my_ territory. I didn’t want to get left behind.”  
“And you found out about this how?”  
Damian raised an eyebrow.  
“Sorry, stupid question.”  
“Yes.” Damian twisted his headphones between his fingers. “I don’t— I don’t necessarily want him to know that I still have contact with the League. Not that it’s contact, really, I just— That’s not who I am anymore.” Damian glared up at Tim. “It isn’t.”  
And there it was. Tim wasn’t quite sure what to say— his instinct was to make some kind of joke, maybe mention one of the mistakes Damian had made in the past year. There were plenty of them to choose from. A month ago, he probably would have done it, but now? It felt wrong. What was he supposed to say instead— You’re right? I know how hard you’ve been trying? I don’t _completely_ hate you anymore?  
In the end, he decided to keep it simple. “Okay.”  
“Are you going to tell him?”  
“No, I don’t think I will.”  
“Oh.” Damian glanced up at him in surprise. “Wait, you won’t? Why not?”  
Because Tim would have to bust himself in the process, for one— there were some things that Batman just didn’t need to know about, and his presence on that plane was one of those things.  
Tim shrugged. “You’re kind of useful sometimes. Now that you’re here, you might as well help. But if he finds out you lied to him, you’re on your own, deal?”  
“Deal.”  
“Alright, good. Just… do whatever you were planning on doing.” Tim suddenly had a thought. “Wait, where were you going to stay?”  
“At the penthouse.”  
“Of course you were,” Tim groaned. Perfect. Just wonderful— on top of everything else.  
“You too?”  
“Yes.”  
“I’m not sharing a room with you.”  
“It looks like you’re gonna have to.”  
“No!”  
“Unless you’ve got a—” Tim cut off as Damian stuffed his headphones back into his ears and turned away, ignoring him altogether. “Damian—”  
No response; Tim fought the urge to smother his brother with his complementary travel pillow. Breathe, he told himself, just breathe.  
He watched the flight attendant run through her safety speech as he considered his options. He would just have to improvise, he figured. Damian might actually be helpful if they were going up against the League, but that didn’t make the intrusion any less annoying.  
Oh yeah, this was all going _exactly_ according to plan.


	2. Do You Want to Know a Secret

There were some nice things about being a Wayne. One of them was that you never had to worry about housing— there was suite at the top of every Wayne building. Of course, if you didn’t want Bruce to know you were there, you had to scale a few walls, pick a couple of locks, that kind of thing. No big deal.  
They came in late and immediately got into a fight when Damian tried to set his bag on the bed. Tim figured he better kill that assumption before it became permanent.  
“Whoaaa okay no— unless you’re planning on sharing that, step away.”  
Damian didn’t even bother turning around. “Wayne building? Wayne property— which means mine. There’s a couch over there.”  
“Think again, kid.”  
“Alright, fine.” Damian clenched his hand into a fist and waved it in Tim’s direction. “Let’s go.”  
“You’re on,” said Tim, doing the same. “Rock, paper, scissors… dammit.”  
Damian made a smashing gesture with his rock over Tim’s scissors, then collapsed back on the bed he’d just won. “Ha!”  
“Yeah, yeah… whatever.” Tim dragged his duffel over to the couch. It didn’t really matter— this gave him better eyes on the door anyway. He pulled out his laptop and began scrolling through files, making sure his screen was angled away from Damian— until the kid slid off the bed and walked towards the door.  
“I’m going to find food.”  
“Stay on the top floor.”  
“Obviously.”  
Damian left; Tim returned to his files. The assassination was planned for tomorrow morning, at seven. Normally, getting up that early would drive him crazy, but he could sleep tonight, right? Patrolling in Washington D.C. was probably a bad idea— you could run into Wonder Woman, and the lasso of truth would be a terrible way to get busted. They should stay inside.  
He just needed to find out where all of this was going down. Then he could make a plan, scope out the site, figure it out. He was expecting a call from his contact— any minute now. She would know.  
Damian slid back inside the door, carrying an armful of snack food and his cell phone. He threw a package of Hostess Zingers at Tim’s head and motioned for him to be quiet.  
“Yes, I’m on a layover in Taiwan,” he said into his phone. “I got randomly selected for a security check, but other than that, it was fine. Yes. Thank you, Father, I’m aware of that. Yes. No. God bless America.” Damian rolled his eyes.  
“Drake?” Damian settled onto his bed and began sorting through his pile of snacks. “No, I haven’t heard from him. Why do you ask?” He raised an eyebrow in Tim’s direction as he listened to whatever Bruce was saying. “Oh. Interesting. No, I have no idea. We don’t exactly keep in touch.”  
He scribbled something onto the pad of stationary sitting on the dresser and held it out for Tim to read.

He doesn’t know you’re here??

Well no, not exactly. Bruce thought Tim was taking a few rest days— they had a deal about those. If Tim said he needed a break, Bruce wasn’t allowed to assign him missions or track him down, unless there was an emergency. Was something happening? Tim felt a little bit guilty about running off.  
Oh right, Damian was still waiting for an answer. Tim walked over to the bed, took the pad, and wrote

Nope.

“I don’t really care what Drake does with his time. Let me know if he dies, I guess.” Damian snatched back his paper.

I can’t believe you. I thought you were being considerate.

He underlined “considerate” a few times and handed Tim the pen. Tim flopped onto the bed and shrugged— he didn’t really have a response for that. Damian was glaring daggers at him, but hey, that was nothing new. He could explain later.  
“I’ve got to go,” Damian told his phone. “Yes. Fine. I’ll call you when we land. Goodbye, Father.” He hung up, turning to Tim.  
“Well?”  
“Well what?” Tim unwrapped his Zingers. “I never said that he knew.”  
“You threatened to turn me in!”  
“And then I didn’t. What’s the problem?”  
“Tell me why you’re hiding.”  
“Mm.” Tim chewed deliberately on the end of his pastry. “I wouldn’t say I’m hiding?”  
“Where does he think you are?”  
“At home.” Tim crumpled up his wrapper and launched it at the trashcan— perfect shot. He lifted his arms into the air in victory, but Damian didn’t look impressed. Not that he was expecting him to. “I don’t know how he figured out I’m not there.”  
“Grayson tried to visit.”  
“Oh.” Yeah, Tim probably should have seen that one coming. “Well, anyway. It’s pretty much the same thing as you. I um, don’t know if you remember that thing with the League awhile back? When you guys thought Bruce was dead, and I— please stop staring at me. That’s creepy.” Damian was really scowling at him now. Tim was suddenly glad they’d taken the plane— Damian couldn’t get any of his blades through airport security.  
“You mean the bit where you tried to take over Wayne Enterprises?”  
“And a lot of people almost died. But sure, if that’s what you took away from it.”  
“Get off my bed.”  
“Okay.” Tim slid off the comforter. He grabbed his laptop off the couch and settled cross-legged on the floor. “What I’m saying is, I have a couple of friends in the League too. And Bruce doesn’t know that because he was lost in time. And I would rather he didn’t find out.”  
“Why not?”  
“Uh…” Honestly, Tim wasn’t sure. Maybe because his contacts were full-on assassins— they killed people, probably a lot of them. Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk to Bruce about the time he’d been gone. That was kind of an sensitive subject, after all. Tim had been damn close to an emotional breakdown for most of it. Or maybe…  
“I see,” said Damian. He inspected his fingernails slowly, smiling down at his hands. “You don’t want him to think that you’re like _me_.”  
What? That was ridiculous— Tim ran a hand through his hair.  
“I’m not sure I follow?”  
“Well, it’s like you said, isn’t it? It’s pretty much the same thing. League contacts. Assassin friends. We both lied to Batman.”  
“I think you’re reading too far into this.”  
“Come on, Drake, we took the same plane. You’re always talking about how we’re… different.” Damian looked up from his fingers long enough to flash a grin in Tim’s direction. “I’m not seeing that just now.”  
“Okay, whatever you want to think.” He was wrong, probably. Tim didn’t care. He didn’t want to tell Bruce— sometimes that happened. You didn’t need an explanation for everything.  
Damian still seemed pretty pleased. He climbed back onto his bed, tapping at his cell phone. Celebratory text to Dick? Whatever. It didn’t matter.  
The two of them sat in silence until Tim’s computer started beeping.  
“I’ve got to take this.” It would be his contact checking in.  
Tim opened up his Skype and accepted the call. When the camera cleared, it showed a girl about his own age— shaved head, multiple piercings. She didn’t exactly look like an international assassin, but that’s what she was.  
“Hey, Prudence,” he told her.  
“Are you kidding me?” groaned Damian, from above him. “Her again?”  
“That better not be who I think it is.” Prudence tapped her finger against the screen, looking around for the source of the second voice. “You said you were coming alone.”  
“That was the plan,” Tim muttered.  
But at this point, his plan was pretty much trashed. Time to wing it, he figured. It would work out.


End file.
